The Town Experiment
by Bianca Pearl
Summary: Fanfiction based on E.M. Forster's novel, Maurice. A potentially dangerous incident means Maurice and Alec have to move again.M/M.
1. Chapter 1

The Town Experiment

NOTE: This story carries on from after E.M. Forster's unpublished epilogue to Maurice. In the epilogue, Kitty, on a cycling holiday, comes across Maurice & Alec working as woodcutters (and living rough). They have an unsatisfactory interview, she dresses him down, Maurice barely speaks to her, and she eventually cycles off in a strop, swearing she won't tell anyone she even saw him.

Chapter One.

Of course they always knew they'd have to move.  
>They'd been in the cottage over a year; so long that it was almost coming to feel like something permanent. That was an illusion, of course. Their only reality was change – moving on, changing jobs, changing accommodation. It had been nice to live in a house again though. Sleeping rough had proved too hard on health and spirit and so they'd taken a chance and rented this place. The final impetus for the latest move - to the cottage - had come when Kitty so unexpectedly and dramatically appeared back in his life eighteen months ago. Strange, how things turned out.<br>Although he'd spurned her when they saw her, eventually he'd written - after much urging ("nagging", Maurice had called it) from Alec. He'd apologised, even explained himself after a fashion and had even received a couple of letters in reply. Kitty's writing style showed she still didn't like him much, or approve of him, but her letters had been quite illuminating about the situation back home. She couldn't help herself so it seemed, but indulge in a bit of gossip. Typical. Alec had addressed the envelope for him so no one at his old home would recognise the handwriting - an unnecessary precaution probably as it sounded like his mother was past noticing anything much anyway.

Alec had been so keen that Maurice re-establish some sort of connection with his family. He didn't, couldn't understand why Maurice felt so alienated from them, such antipathy toward them when by all accounts they sounded like decent, respectable, normal women who positively looked up to Maurice as only son and head of the household. Because Alec didn't dislike _his_ family at all. He loved them in fact, and had struggled to come to terms with his actions in abandoning them like he had with no word of explanation. He was especially concerned for his parents who weren't young: Alec had been the "surprise," the late-arriving baby of the family, younger by a stretch of years than his brothers and sisters. Made much of by all as a result.  
>Even in the midst of the passionate intensity, the ecstatic happiness that bound Alec and Maurice together so closely during those first few months after the fateful sailing of the <em>Normannia<em> , it was obvious that Alec was suffering intense pangs of remorse and shame for what he'd done to his family, though he said little. After a while, Maurice had drawn a sum out of his bank account and offered to send it to Fred in the Argentine as recompense for the expense of Alec's passage. Alec had argued - his pride demanded it - but in the end he acquiesced with evident relief and sent the money and a letter that didn't actually explain anything but expressed his regret.  
>The letter and money were returned without comment.<br>Alec had written at about the same time and along the same lines to his parents. That letter wasn't returned but although Alec had spent months religiously visiting twice a week the small village post-office that he had given as his care-of address, no reply had ever come.

It was a warm spring night some three months after Kitty. Maurice woke slowly from a deep sleep. He'd been playing rugby in his dream, flying into a tackle, the onlookers shouting their approval. His eyes opened and he sat up in bed, heart thumping. There _were_ shouts, real ones, out there in the woods. Getting closer, and there was nothing friendly about them. Yahooing, drunken laughter. Alec was awake now too; very still, listening. Maurice could see his eyes flicking back and forth by the moonlight coming in through a gap in the shutters. There were times that Alec reminded him of some half-wild creature - alert, tense, ready to fight or fly with a hair-trigger swiftness.  
>Crashing in the undergrowth now, getting ever nearer. How many? Three? Six? A dozen?<br>"Hey nancy-boys!" someone shouted. "Come out and play!" Cackles of laughter.  
>"What, you shy? I'm sure them arses is stretched enough by now to take us all on and more!"<br>Maurice turned cold. Surely they couldn't be serious? A beating he could understand but this...? To do the very thing to them that they despised them for doing? Actually, it did make a kind of perverted sense. And after all was done they'd still consider themselves real men.  
>"What should we...?"<br>But Alec had already leaped out of bed, pulled on his pants and sprinted for the other room. Maurice followed, caught up with him just as he'd pulled the gun down off the wall. It was always loaded. Maurice clutched his arm.  
>"Think about what you're doing!"<br>"Get off!" Alec wrenched his arm free and threw the door open. Without hesitation he fired two shots up into the air. The crack of the gunfire shockingly loud in the pristine stillness of the night. There was no more laughter, no more shouting, just the crashing sound of feet haring away through the undergrowth.  
>Away from them.<p>

Maurice pulled Alec inside and bolted the door. He put the gun down carefully enough but Maurice could see that every muscle in his body was rigid and shaking, thrumming tight as a drum-skin. He started to cough, almost doubled up with it.  
>Maurice put an arm round his waist and led him to the table, sat him down in a chair, pulled up another and sat down beside him.<br>"I'd kill 'em all before they touched a single hair on your head." There was no doubting those words; so quietly spoken.  
>By mutual consent the two men didn't speak much about their separate experiences in France but something about the fierce, yet remote look In Alec's eyes told Maurice more clearly than a thousand words that he was remembering something. Some barbarity he's witnessed in that far-away place.<br>Maurice said nothing, just leaned his head on Alec's shoulder and stroked his neck until he stopped shaking.

The next morning they packed everything they could fit into their rucksacks and walked away.  
>Maurice had a plan. He'd had decided that this time they should hide in plain sight.<br>The very features that had made the cottage so appealing to them - its isolation, remoteness from other human beings and prying eyes - were paradoxically the very reasons why they were so very vulnerable there, should someone with malevolent intent actually take an interest.  
>Despite the humble nature of their recent accommodations, Maurice in fact had a nest-egg. Several weeks after the boathouse, once Maurice had calmed down sufficiently to think coherently again, he'd realised that he had to take care of things. He was responsible for Alec now, he who'd induced him to give up everything for love. Because of his decision to cleave himself to Maurice, Alec had been left in effect penniless. Almost everything he had earned at Penge had been spent on his kit for the Argentine, almost every personal possession packed up in a chest and at that time on a boat mid-ocean somewhere heading for said country.<br>So Maurice had written to his lawyer, instructed him to wind up and sort out business affairs that needed it, given him permission to administer Maurice's bank accounts and investments _in absentia_. Maurice's investments had indeed been wise which is why it had been so very galling to hear via Kitty's letters of the lies that the Durham women had been spreading about him. Financial mismanagement, indeed. Anything to deflect negative attention from dear Clive and his sparkling career. He'd obviously let them in on Maurice's disgraceful secret. In fact, in his more paranoid moments Maurice suspected that most everyone knew except poor hapless Mother, Kitty and Ada. Alec claimed that Simcox knew everything about everything that happened in that house by some strange second-sight or process of osmosis but could be relied upon to say and do nothing except mildly torment Clive with the odd cryptic comment. "That's what the old coot lives for," he'd explained.  
>Mr Borenius must surely have guessed, Mr Hall and Scudder both disappearing so mysteriously into thin air on the very same day. After having come across Maurice on board the <em>Normannia<em> that day even the parson could not fail to make the final connection in his mind. God knows what Alec's parents had ever been told, if anything. The feelings, concerns and worries of the butcher of Osmington (retired) would not have loomed large in anyone at Penge's thoughts.  
>At any rate, Maurice had kept up a regular correspondence with his solicitor and his wealth had indeed grown somewhat even with the lawyer's fees extracted. Now was the time to make use of some of it, though he had intended to save it for their old age. They had been so fixed for so long upon earning their daily keep and not drawing down on their capital, and had done a good job of that so far too. But the best-laid plans must sometimes change, that much he had learnt.<br>Maurice was going to rent them a house. In a town. Or rather a small city, large enough that they could live comfortably anonymous lives. But not so big as to be the sort of teeming rat-hole that would drive Alec to despair.

He explained all this to Alec on the train carrying them away from the county that had been their home these last fifteen months. His friend's reaction wasn't quite as positive as he could have wished. In fact, his mouth literally dropped open in shock.  
>"Are you mad? What're the likes of us going to do in a town?"<br>"I can get work. I'm good with figures." A reference from Hill & Hall had obviously been out of the question - he knew for a fact that his father's old partner hadn't taken at all kindly to young Hall's abandonment of his post, so to speak. Yet surely he'd be able to get something - far humbler of course, but something.  
>"I've never lived in a town."<br>"You'll get used to it. We need to be near a decent doctor."  
>Alec sucked on his cigarette and looked out the window, face like thunder. For Maurice had brought up a most unpopular topic: Alec's cough. His mood not helped one bit by the face that he started coughing right there and then, as if to underline Maurice's very point. He obstinately refused to admit that there was anything wrong let alone seek help for it, but every time Maurice heard that deep, wrenching, hacking sound a part of him went cold inside.<br>It was Alec's most visible legacy from the war.  
>He'd promised they would never be parted - but they had been, by a force far beyond their control. Neither was it an especial curse or persecution visited upon Maurice and Alec alone because of what they were. It had been far worse than that. A scourge that had ripped through an entire generation of young men in their prime without fear or favour, tearing them from the arms of parents, sweethearts and wives. Three years apart - they'd caught a couple of glimpses of each other as they marched past in opposite directions, and spent one day clinging desperately together in a cheap hotel room in Marseilles when they'd both happened to have leave at the same time. Strangely, that had been almost worse than not seeing one another at all. They both made it though relatively unscathed until almost the very end when Alec had succumbed to the Spanish flu. Maurice had caught the milder version but Alec was struck by the deadly second wave and almost died in some wretched field hospital. All Alec would say on the subject was that they were blessed to have both emerged whole from the entire experience and a little cough never hurt anyone. But Maurice feared his lungs had been permanently weakened, and in winter especially the cough would always start up again.<br>"It's not all bad in the city," he said.  
>"You think. And what will I do I'd like to know while you're off writing numbers in a ledger all day or whatever it is you do? I won't be a kept man."<br>"And I won't be keeping you. You can get a job." Maurice had realised that much, that any such arrangement would poison their friendship more surely than just about anything else. Alec's pride wouldn't take it.  
>"Doing what?"<br>"We'll think of something."  
>"I won't pose as your servant neither."<br>"Of course not."  
>"People will notice we're living together. It's not like you and Clive swanning around London and staying in that town apartment of his. I needn't remind you why."<br>"Alec, listen. We can't live out in the middle of nowhere any more. It's too dangerous."  
>"And this isn't?"<br>"Let's just try. Please."  
>"All right, Maurice. All right. But I'm not going to no doctor."<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Actually, maybe you were right. This place isn't half bad."  
>Alec walked his toes across Maurice's chest while Maurice silently praised heaven for bathrooms with capacious baths. Said toes were very pink, and slippery with lather. The bath was too hot and so full that water slopped over the side onto the floor with every small movement. They didn't care. Alec leaned back against the far end of the tub and looked around the small bathroom through the haze of steam, all chequerboard navy and white tiles with a ship's anchor thrown in for good measure every now and then. His face was a picture of contented wonderment.<br>"Amazin', how the other half lives."

It had been surprisingly easy to find a place, they'd been lucky. A modest yet pleasant furnished house in an anonymous middle-class part of town, home to respectable commuting businessmen and their respectable families. Best of all, the problem of their living in the same house had been neatly solved by the fact that the original kitchen had been converted into a basement flat. Maurice had simply taken on both, the flat ostensibly for Alec, the house for Maurice.  
>"So I'll be living down there," said Alec when Maurice first took him to see the house. Still determined to be unimpressed.<br>"Of course not, you'll be living with me."  
>"But I'll have to put all me things down there."<br>"I suppose so," said Maurice with some exasperation. "Is that such a terrible hardship?"  
>"And I'll have to skulk around down there too if anyone comes to call."<br>"Hopefully no-one will."  
>Thankfully, Alec had changed his tune when he saw the bathroom.<br>"Indoor plumbing." He turned the hot tap on and off experimentally. "Now this _is_ the life."

For appearance's sake and because neither of them possessed the time nor the necessary skills to upkeep a town house, Maurice had felt compelled to employ a housekeeper. (Live-out naturally, with hours arranged to coincide with when they were both away at work.) Although the woman had initially expressed surprise when Mr Hall had instructed her she was to prepare sufficient dinner for himself _and_ Mr Scudder every night, once he explained that they had been comrades during the war she had smiled warmly and acquiesced without another question. In a very strange way the war had actually made it easier for them to be together, had provided a reason for men of such different classes to have developed a bond, a friendship of some sort.  
>A sense of mutual obligation, even.<p>

Maurice secured a position at a medium-sized shipping concern without too much difficulty. The owner had been so thrilled at the idea of employing a Cambridge old-boy and such an obvious gentleman to boot that he hadn't even bothered to ask about references, which was almost a shame as Maurice had concocted quite a good story about his old employer moving overseas and dying and Maurice's own copies of the references most unfortunately having been destroyed in a fire. Never mind - he could save it for another time.  
>It had been difficult at first to re-inhabit an image of his old self, and he balked at it anyway - the old suburban ways of dressing, talking, being. It was oppressive, but he took comfort in the fervent belief that none of this exterior rubbish could change what was inside: he and Alec's thoughts, their feelings, their love - all those things belonged to the Greenwood, no matter where they actually were. Yes, the Greenwood could just as easily be a state of mind as a physical reality. That belief was all that had got him through the war with his sanity intact, truth be told. Through those three terrifying, interminable years of separation from his friend.<br>Maybe, just maybe, they really could have the best of both worlds here in town: the comforts and conveniences of modern life without the stultifying conformity that came with it. Surely they, if anyone, could achieve that.

Mr Stanton, proprietor of Stanton & Co., was a thoroughly decent man and Maurice quickly distinguished himself sufficiently to gain a promotion to a position of some responsibility. He'd fallen on his feet it was true. He wished he could say the same for Alec.  
>Game-keeping positions being few and far between in the city Alec had eventually resigned himself to butchery. He'd learnt enough of the basics of the trade helping out in his dad's shop to get a job as a hand in a large bustling meat-market near the middle of town. He hated it. Alec had always thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't been the first born son and therefore expected to take on the mantle of Father's business when he grew too old to run it himself. That had fallen to Robert, Alec's older brother by some twenty years. The fact of Bob's inheritance had always been bitterly resented by Fred, second-born and burning with ambition. But not Alec, oh no. Stuck all day indoors hacking up carcasses and passing the time of day with housewives? Always smelling slightly of raw meat no matter how hard you tried to scrub it away? Give him the woods any day, he'd told Maurice as much many a time. Yet now, here he was, working in a place that to Maurice's ears sounded akin to some kind of hellish abattoir. As far from the freedom of the open air as could be.<br>Maurice worried about Alec. Every day, he wondered if he'd made the right decision. For both of them.

"Mr Hall, I'd like to introduce my daughter Edith."  
>Maurice actually jumped at the sound of Mr Stanton's voice; he'd been miles away, looking out at the port and the grey choppy sea beyond. He often caught himself doing this, drifting when he should be working. Stanton &amp; Co might be situated in a plain, modest building, nothing like the grandiose colonnaded porticoes of Hill &amp; Hall, but the view was superb.<br>Of course it stood to reason that an importer/exporter be situated near their client base, and Mr Stanton was nothing if not practical. Beneath that mild exterior - a small, bespectacled fifty-ish man, kindly and complaisant in manner - beat the heart of a true businessman. And Maurice himself hadn't been a successful stockbroker for nothing. Mr Stanton and Maurice had hit it off at once, and Maurice was quickly promoted from clerk to agent. He'd been happy to accept the offer though it had stirred up some discontent in the clerical office amongst those who had been there much longer. Two months had passed and he felt that things were going well; his salary paid the bills and they hadn't had to dig too far into their savings to get set up.  
>It felt strange, handling shipping bills from the Argentine - every time he expected that maybe the name on it would be Fred Scudder. That thought would send him off into another reverie and he would muse on the capriciousness of fate, the ever-branching paths that every life takes with decisions at every turn that can take a man down an entirely different road. If he or Alec had just said or done one little thing differently eight years ago it might be "Alec Scudder" whose name appeared on documents from that far-away place. But in that case Maurice wouldn't be here to read them even if they did - he'd be back at Hill &amp; Hall presumably, possibly married to some poor girl, both of them discontented, both of them withering up inside a little more by the year. And that was the best-case scenario. At the very moment his employer addressed him he'd been tracking the swooping, scavenging flight of a seagull with his eyes and thanking providence yet again that Alec hadn't given up on him during those fateful few weeks when they first met, that he'd kept pushing despite Maurice's obtuseness, his snobbery, his fear and refusal to communicate.<p>

Snapping back to the present, Maurice stood up and briskly extended his hand. "Very pleased to meet you, Miss Stanton."  
>"And I you." She had a firm grip, for a woman. "I've heard quite a lot about father's indispensable new colleague. It's nice to put a face to the name."<br>"It was kind of him to say so. I'm very much enjoying working here."  
>Miss Stanton had a great deal of thick chestnut brown hair piled up on the top of her head, wore thin, steel-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose, and attire that bespoke a certain desire to be admired for something other than a pretty figure set off by feminine flounces.<br>"Now, Edith," Mr Stanton, who had stepped out of the office briefly as Maurice and Edith introduced themselves, returned now with his coat and umbrella. "Have you asked Mr Hall about Thursday? No? Well, Mr Hall, I'm having a few colleagues round for a modest repast and we'd be very happy if you'd join us."  
>"Well - I - there might be -"<br>"Oh, do, Mr Hall," Edith whispered. "Most of them are about eighty! It would be nice to have someone young to talk to for a change!"  
>"Eighty, indeed! Well, if you're not sure let me know tomorrow. Now I'm taking my daughter out for tea. Owner's prerogative, I'm afraid. Hold the fort will you; I'll be back in an hour."<br>They left and Maurice sat down again, glad to be granted time to think of an excuse.

Outside, Edith took her father's arm.  
>"Decent young chap, that Mr Hall," he said in an offhand kind of way.<br>_Papa's matchmaking again if I'm not mistaken._  
>She did feel sorry for him; he was of a different generation and seeing her twenty-four and not married he worried that she would end up on the shelf. With no mother or older sisters to guide her matrimonially Father somehow felt it behoved him to find her a suitable young man, and Edith knew he considered her rather a bluestocking and therefore an even more difficult match. Of course, all that was actually quite true and if she was honest with herself sometimes she did worry about ending up as the proverbial old maid in the garret.<br>All the same, this Mr Hall was a much better proposition than any of the other men from Papa's office he'd ever-so-not-discreetly paraded before her. Very nice looking, with a beautiful charming voice. But why would such a prepossessing man of thirty or thereabouts not be married already? There weren't enough of them to go around now as it was, thanks to the war.  
><em>Don't prejudge, Edith. You're not such a fabulous catch yourself and see. <em>

Alec hosed the last of the blood, fluids and tissue scraps down the grating, took off his blue and white striped apron with a sigh of relief. It was seven o'clock and Matheson's the Butcher's back room was emptying out rapidly as the last of the workers finished cleaning and scrubbing and locking away the undressed carcases in the cold-room, white marbled fat and red muscle hanging from meat hooks and awaiting their turn for the knife on the morrow.  
>"Hey Alec -" Jimmy Franks, a tall and rangy ginger-headed man about Alec's age called out to him just as he was heading out the door. "A few of us are going down the Star and Garter for a pint. Care to come along?"<br>It was the first time he'd been asked though he knew they went there most nights. He was starting to be accepted. He thought of Maurice waiting at home, dinner warming on the stove. He knew he oughtn't to but the thought of a few pints in a convivial atmosphere was very appealing and, if he was honest with himself, he missed the company of his own kind of people. This job was bad enough without being on the outer as well.  
>"Why not?" he said.<p>

The pub was crowded, smoky and loud, but not so different from the Crown back at Osmington or the local at Penge on a Saturday night, really. Except everyone here didn't necessarily all know each other and there was a certain undercurrent - especially as the night drew on and the punters got drunker - that murmured, softly and menacingly, one wrong word and there could well be a fight. In fact half the people here seemed to be spoiling for one. But at Alec's table all was most congenial, and Jimmy was free with cigarettes and rounds, having won a packet on the gee gees the other day.  
>There were meat pies too which weren't half bad and soon Alec forgot all about going home. He didn't have to work tomorrow, after all so why should he? Then, would you believe it, Bert Trawler showed up. Alec had served with him in the war. Naturally they had to catch up too, turned out Bert was a regular here, and before he knew it time had been called and they'd all been tipped out onto the street.<p>

It was near-midnight when he finally got home, going in as he always did through the basement flat, though he could barely get the key into the lock and half-wondered if he'd end up sleeping on the doorstep and get thrown into gaol for vagrancy. He stumbled, coughing a bit, up the internal stairs that, luckily enough hadn't been removed, only a locked and bolted door between the residences. It had been easy enough to get the landlord's agent to unlock it for them.  
>In the kitchen his covered plate of dinner was still on the stove, on top of a pan of water that had boiled dry. He turned off the hob, thankful that at least he wasn't so rotten that he'd let them burn to death in their beds.<br>In the parlour he found Maurice, fallen asleep in his chair. Alec crept as carefully and quietly across the room as he could in his state, and looked down at his friend. The dying firelight glimmered mahogany red on his dark hair - he looked like an angel asleep, always had. Maurice's head had drooped to the side, his shirt open at the throat, leaving the tender curve of his long neck exposed. Alec longed to kiss him there. He swayed on his feet.  
><em>You're drunk, Alec. Leave him alone.<em>  
>He oh-so-carefully put the screen in front of the fire but somehow managed to catch the fire irons with his foot. The poker fell out and clattered across the hearth.<br>"Bollocks." He glanced anxiously at his sleeping friend.  
>"Alec." Maurice sat up, blinking.<br>"Sorry, was trying not to wake you."  
>"Where've you been?" Maurice didn't sound angry. That was a good start.<br>Alec sat down heavily on the hearth rug; put his head on Maurice's knee."I went for drink with the lads."  
>"Ah."<br>Alec had been so sure he'd have to justify himself that even though he hadn't been questioned, he looked up and continued on a bit defensively, "I've got to get on with my workmates, you know."  
>"Yes, you do." Maurice's voice was still blurry with sleep. Alec felt safe and wanted in the warm embrace of that low, beautiful voice as surely as if he was in Maurice's arms. "As a matter of fact," Maurice added, "Mr Stanton keeps asking me to dinner at his home as well. I can't keep making excuses, either."<br>"Well there you go." Alec felt totally vindicated and rested his cheek back against Maurice's leg. Maurice ran his fingers through his hair. After a long silence Alec spoke again.  
>"Maurice?"<br>"Hmm?"  
>"I hain't got brewer's droop or nothing, you know."<br>"Pleased to hear it."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"You've had your hair cut"  
>A visit to the barber's had been Maurice's first priority when they arrived in town, directly after he'd secured lodgings for the two of them in separate but adjoining hotel rooms.<br>"Well, I can hardly go looking for somewhere decent for us to live looking like a scarecrow, can I? No landlord would have me. Nor applying for jobs. I'll have to buy a suit tomorrow too."  
>"So you won't want me cutting it for you anymore then."<br>Alec's first inclination was to be obstinate and churlish about the short hair. Randomly balking at entirely trivial things was his way of showing his continuing lack of faith in the wisdom of this town experiment. He knew it was childish and it wasn't even as if he'd come up with a better suggestion for what they should do or where they should go - yet still he couldn't seem to help himself.  
>But then he took another look at Maurice - properly this time. With his hair cut like that he looked almost exactly like he had back at Penge, when Alec had first seen him, first known him in the Russet Room.<br>The memory had come back so strongly that he'd been obliged to take Maurice to bed at once, that very minute.  
>Alec smiled at the recollection. His mood was lifting, as it always did the further the omnibus got out of town. He rubbed condensation from the mirror for the half-dozenth time and watched grey slowly turn to green. He didn't like the built-up areas; they pressed in on his brain. If it wasn't for Maurice he'd be away in a flash.<br>Having said that, things had certainly taken a turn for the better lately. He'd looked about, and found a situation as groundskeeper, gamekeeper and general odd-jobs man all rolled into one at a smallish semi-rural estate just outside town. So he was pretty much back where he'd started, but anything was better than butchery. It meant an omnibus ride to the end of the line and a long walk after, making his day even longer than it had been at the meat-market but he didn't care; he never thought he'd be so happy to chuck a job.  
>The house Maurice had found for them was nice, too, he had to admit. Even his little flat underneath that he didn't actually live in was far better and more modern than anything he'd ever imagined inhabiting. But he still felt uneasy about it, mainly because it was Maurice who'd paid for practically everything. He'd always known Maurice had more money than him - it was obvious, but he preferred not to dwell on that reality. After all, in the woods they'd worked and earned their meagre wages shoulder to shoulder, and he could almost imagine that they were equals.<br>_Never mind. You're doing your bit_, he told himself as the mostly-empty omnibus drew to a halt and he jumped off before the gathered horde of bowler-hatted businessmen headed for the city could trample him underfoot.

The walk was quite nice in the crisp morning air; he smoked a cigarette and arrived at the back door for orders at eight o'clock sharp. Mr Chisholm, the elderly bachelor owner and his widowed sister Mrs Sharpe were good enough sorts. The old boy kept dogs which pleased Alec, and showed almost no interest in the running of the place as long as everything kept ticking along smoothly, being almost entirely absorbed by horse-racing and his club. She was not over-fussy and didn't go round with a look on her face like she had a poker up her arse like the old lady back at Penge. In fact, Alec suspected she partook of rather more of the medicinal brandy than strictly what the doctor ordered. Today there were no special instructions, just his usual duties - look after the dogs, check for rabbits and other vermin coming in from the fields beyond the estate, cut the west lawn and rake up leaves. So the morning passed uneventfully enough.  
>His peace wasn't to last, though.<p>

Just as they were getting up from servant's luncheon Mrs Brown the housekeeper brought in the new lady's maid for them to meet - the former having left to get married. Neat, trim figure, swept up brown hair, startled deer-like eyes.  
>Milly.<br>You could have knocked him down with a feather.  
>"How have you been, Alec?" Milly held out a small hand to shake. She looked much the same. Wore a wedding ring, but had that air of sadness and loss about her that was so familiar these days.<br>"Good. Yourself?"  
>"Very well, thank-you." Her voice was quite calm but her eyes were still wide with shock.<br>"So you two know each other?" Mrs Brown enquired with a certain questioning archness in her tone that Alec didn't care for one bit.  
>"Uh, yes - we worked at the same estate years ago." When they'd said yesterday that a Mrs Millicent Carthy was starting as lady's maid today, of course he'd never thought of little Milly Pearce, from all those years ago.<br>"Well, that's nice. It'll help Milly settle in if she already knows someone. Now, dear, let me show you Madam's rooms." Milly followed Mrs Brown out meekly enough, but not without throwing Alec a quizzical glance back over her shoulder, as she headed on up the back stairs.

He was cutting dead wood off some of the fruit trees that afternoon when she caught up with him.  
>"Alec." She crossed her arms. Even in her thick winter coat she looked small and vulnerable, though he knew she had steel enough to get by. "Well. This is quite a surprise."<br>He looked down at his feet.  
>"You've nothing to say for yourself, then?"<br>He looked back at her, struck quite dumb - which didn't happen to him often. They were so far away from Penge; he'd never thought to see anyone he knew here, let alone her.  
>"Just disappearing, without a word."<br>"It were wrong of me, Milly, I know it."  
>"I might at least have expected -" Her voice choked a bit.<br>"I know. I should've written."  
>"And your poor parents. They came up to Penge to try and find out what might have happened to you. We were all so afraid you were the victim of some kind of foul play. Eventually Mr Durham had a quiet word with your pa, said he had it on good authority that you'd skipped off."<br>Alec blanched. "Skipped off how?"  
>"Just skipped off, he said. You should know. You're the one as did it...why, Alec?"<br>He just scraped one foot through the loose gravel of the path and said nothing. His poor parents, worried that he'd had an accident.  
>"Surely you will at least do me the honour of telling me now, though it's far too late to mend the hurt you caused."<br>"I - I changed my mind about the Argentine. But they weren't going to take no for an answer, 'specially Fred after he'd paid so much for my fare. I reckoned he'd end up press-ganging me onto that ship the way he was talking, so I just left." Alec felt sick as he said it; blaming his family for his own wrongdoing.  
>Her expression was unsympathetic, to say the least.<br>"I was just a kid, Milly."  
>"So was I!" She spat the words out, spun around and ran back for the house.<p>

Milly was live-in but had gone to her room early so Alec stayed on for servant's dinner and a few glasses of ale with the men-servants, as he always did of a Friday night lately- it had become something of a habit. Because Maurice now had a habit of his own. He'd taken to dining with Mr Stanton at his club - or even his home - most Fridays. And most convivial it was, Alec was sure.

Alec only just made the last omnibus and when he got home Maurice was already in bed. He crept in quietly as could on stocking-feet, until he saw the glowing red ember of a cigarette floating disembodied in the darkness.  
>"Not asleep?"<br>"Can't."  
>"How was dinner at the club?" He couldn't help putting on a silly posh accent as he said it.<br>"Quite nice actually."  
>Alec undressed quickly and jumped in; it was cold tonight. Maurice passed him the cigarette.<br>"You'll never guess who started work at Old Chisholm's today."  
>"Who?"<br>"Only Milly."  
>"<em>Milly?"<em> Maurice sat up straighter in bed. "The maid from Penge?"  
>"The exact same. The one you saw me kiss."<br>"Didn't you almost - "  
>"No, I didn't almost," lied Alec. He sat up and passed back the cigarette. Maurice was silent.<br>"What did you tell her?"  
>"Not much. She didn't really ask me anything, just went mad at me about upsetting everyone. Apparently my people came searching for me."<br>Maurice put his arm around Alec's shoulder. After a while he asked, "What on earth is she doing here?"  
>"Dunno. Didn't get a chance to ask her, she went off on her high-horse."<br>"You don't think she still holds candle for you, do you?"  
>"Don't be daft. Looks like she's been married and widowed since I last knew her."<br>"Still, you're a good-looking boy, if you hadn't noticed - "  
>"You worried?" Alec reached over in the dark and took the cigarette out of Maurice's mouth, stubbed it out in the ashtray by the bed. "You shouldn't be."<br>He moved across and settled himself on Maurice's lap, straddling him. "How can I convince you I'm yours? I'll do anything..."  
>Maurice's breath was hot on his neck. "Anything?"<br>"Anything."

The next day their paths crossed in the garden again. He made to pass her by with just a nod of the head but she stopped him, put her hand on his arm.  
>"I'm sorry I was so short with you yesterday."<br>"No, it's me needs to apologise, Milly. To a good many people."  
>"Well. Let's just let bygones be bygones anyway."<br>Milly asked him where he was living; he said he was boarding in town. She followed that up by enquiring, of course, as to why he wasn't living-in to save money. He said he wanted the freedom to do as he pleased in his own time and she accepted this male prerogative without question.  
>After all, he wasn't twenty any more; his every step dogged by Father, Mr Borenius or old Mr Ayres. It was almost as if they'd collectively sensed there was something different about him, something they could neither understand nor control and they were desperate to get him safely pushed into a box before he left their sphere of influence for good. The pressure to propose to Milly had grown ever more intense those last few days. What with that and fretting constantly about Maurice, it had all just about done his head in.<br>Maybe it wasn't such a complete lie to say he'd been escaping from his family, after all.  
>"What brings you here anyhow, Milly? It's a long way from Penge."<br>"Oh! Well, my whole family comes from round here originally. Mum and Dad decided to move back to be nearer my aunts and uncles and so I decided to come with them. I had nothing to keep me there."  
>"And nobody?" His tone was searching.<br>She glanced down at her ring finger. "No. Edward was killed in the war. We'd only been married a month when he went."  
>"I'm sorry."<br>She forced a smile. "Well. It's a sorrow I share with a thousand other women isn't it. We have to get on, now. But you, Alec - not married? I can hardly believe it."  
>"I'm not thirty yet. Plenty of time."<br>"Hmm."

After a few more days of regular chance encounters, Alec realised she was seeking him out. He wondered with sinking heart what he should do. Make up some pretend engagement? Hand in his notice - which he didn't want to do. He liked it here, it suited him well. He wasn't about to tell Maurice, anyway. It would only worry him. He knew Maurice had a ridiculous fear, which he tried without total success to keep well-hidden, that because Alec had been with girls before they met he'd somehow be drawn back one day. He didn't seem to worry about other men though, from what Alec could tell. He was a funny creature sometimes and Alec loved him for it. But it was best not to mention the Milly problem to him, best to deal with it himself somehow.  
>Somehow.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

After dessert was cleared away Mr Stanton called for coffee in the drawing room.  
>"I've just the thing to go with it, Mr Hall," he said with a conspiratorial wink. "Some damn fine port in the cellar. I'll get it myself, don't quite trust Jackson not to shake it up or drop it or something."<br>There were only the three of them that night. The other guest, if he had ever in fact existed, having been called away on some non-specified but terribly urgent "business."  
><em>Dear Papa. He's so transparent! Jackson is the consummate professional and we both know it.<em> Edith blushed slightly, sure Mr Hall must be uncomfortable with all this obvious manoeuvring - but he seemed all right, lighting a cigarette by the mantelpiece then strolling over to look at the family pictures displayed on a low table.  
>He picked up an old fashioned daguerreotype in an ornate silver frame. "Your mother, Miss Stanton?"<br>"Please, call me Edith. I don't stand much on ceremony, really. And yes, that is Mother. She died when I was thirteen."  
>"Ah. My father passed away when I was fourteen." A flash of understanding passed between them. "I'm Maurice, by the way."<br>So stupid, there she was, blushing again. She could feel her cheeks positively burning. _This isn't you, Edie. You're quite the modern woman, remember? Steady on, don't make a fool of yourself.  
><em>"And this?" He carefully replaced her mother's picture to look at the one beside it. A dark-haired, dark-eyed young man, posing in his uniform, that strange mixture of pride and trepidation on his face that one saw in so many similar photographs.  
>"My brother Toby. He was killed on the Somme."<br>"I'm sorry."  
>"He was only twenty. Left behind a <em>fiancée<em>, too. Sweet girl." She felt sudden tears prickling at the back of her eyes and sought about for some other topic - any topic.  
>"And you, Mr Hall. Surely you had a sweetheart waiting at home for you while you were away doing your duty for King and Country."<br>_Edith, you're becoming reckless!_ She couldn't believe she'd said such a forward thing. There was modern and then there was just plain rude. _Must have been that second wine at dinner.  
><em>She needn't have worried, though. Mr Hall seemed barely to notice, and certainly wasn't shocked. His eyes grew distant for a moment and then cleared again. "As a matter of fact I did, yes. But she grew weary waiting, and married someone else."  
>"Mr Hall! I can hardly believe any woman would be so foolhardy!"<br>"Maurice, remember?" He shrugged. "There you have it, though."  
>"Not all women are so inconstant."<br>"I'm sure they are not." He smiled oddly, looking into her eyes. Edith excused herself a moment and left the room.  
>Left alone, Maurice wandered about, smoking and congratulating himself on how well he seemed to be getting along, pretending that he was a part of all this again. Truth be told, it felt already as if he'd never really left polite society. He'd been worried that he might have turned into some sort of solitary misfit out there in the woods, unfit ever again for genteel company. But it had been almost disturbingly easy really, he just shrugged his former self back on like an old suit, at first it scratched a bit and he could smell the mothballs, but he'd soon grown accustomed again.<br>But the really marvellous part was, that he could throw the whole damn thing off again as soon as he stepped back inside his own door to be with his Alec, all pretence over.  
>Despite all that, he was rather glad to be left alone for a minute. Edith Stanton was a sweet girl but something about that whole conversation had been making him uneasy and he was glad to be left to stare into the flames for a few minutes and not have to think. In time-honoured fashion, Maurice's subconscious was grasping the situation long before the facts deigned to make themselves known to the thinking part of his brain.<br>To his cost.

Outside in the hallway Edith threw herself back against the wall, fist in mouth. She could hardly believe she'd said those things. A corner of her carefully maintained, smooth facade seemed unexpectedly to have lifted, allowing Mr Hall - and worse, herself - a glimpse of the loneliness beneath, the yearning for love - and not just of the fatherly sort.  
>She was smoothing down her skirt with nervous hands and wondering about how she could ever face him again when her father reappeared.<br>"What on earth are you about, Edie? Come back in and entertain our guest." He hefted the bottle of port with a jovial air and guided her back into the parlour.

In the taxi home, Maurice's discomfort grew, not least at the memory of all the smooth lies that had begun pouring out of his mouth almost of their own volition. An intended who had left him for another man? What a tale of woe and why had he found it necessary to tell it? He knew of course. Trying to explain away his continued bachelorhood in such a way as would lead to the least amount of further questioning. It had worked - but in a sudden clear flash of premonition, Maurice saw his future. Once the lying started it would grow and grow until he'd built a monstrous edifice of falsehood that he simply wouldn't be able to maintain. It would come crashing down around his ears for sure.  
>He suddenly recalled the crystal clarity of his thoughts in those hours after he'd seen the <em>Normannia<em> set sail without Alec. "All compromise was dangerous, because furtive." He had uttered those very words to himself. Clive had understood that, and for a while Maurice had too. Why had he forgotten?

Evening, a week or so later. Maurice wandered into the kitchen. Alec was lifting the covers on the dishes Mrs Moxley had left for their supper and sniffing at the contents. Maurice put his arms around his friend's waist and smelt the soapy aroma of his neck. When Alec had worked at the meat-market he'd always headed straight for the bath as soon as he got home, to "wash of the abattoir stink," as he put it, and now even though he'd changed jobs, it had become a regular habit.  
>"What's for dinner?" Maurice asked.<br>"Baked cod by the looks. Smells nice too. Maurice -" Alec turned in his arms and gave him a kiss. "After dinner let's go to the cinema. _The mask of Zorro_'s on at the Savoy."  
>"Well, we can't miss that then," said Maurice with a smile but he couldn't help feeling disappointed. He'd been somehow hoping their evenings here in the townhouse would be spent the same as they had been back at the cottage - reading cosily together by the fire, talking, mending and other quiet chores, making love.<br>But more often than not that wasn't the case. Alec was ether too tired after a long day of work and travel and went quickly to bed after dinner, or came home even later smelling of beer after "a few pints," as he put it, with his fellow servants after work. If he did have any energy he usually suggested going to the flicks, having developed a passion for them, especially Buster Keaton comedies and adventure yarns. It wasn't that Maurice didn't enjoy them too, and he especially enjoyed seeing Alec laughing and happy. Yet - it was so different here. No longer just the two of them. They were physically safer, but more separate than they'd ever been - the war aside - with different jobs, different workmates, different lives almost. Maurice couldn't help but pine more than a little for their former life.  
><em>Well what did you expect? You who wanted to come and live in the city.<br>_And he hadn't even managed to get Alec to see a doctor yet.

The day inevitably came, as he'd known it would. Maurice felt obliged to throw a dinner party for his employer. As he had quite reasonably explained to Alec, he'd been invited so very many times to Mr Stanton's - and to the homes of other senior members of staff - that courtesy simply demanded he return the favour now. He'd hired cooks and waiting staff from an agency, putting Mrs Moxley's noise seriously out of joint in the process, and Alec of course was banished to the basement.  
>Mrs Moxley had made him a very nice dinner though, steak and kidney pie with taters and jam sponge for afters. "We working class have got to stick together, after all," she'd said to him on her way out, having deliberately stayed late to "supervise" the arrival of the invading cooks. To "make sure they know the rules of my kitchen," as she'd put it.<br>Alec lit the fire in the downstairs flat for the first time ever, ate his dinner and listened to the guests arrive. There were quite a few of them by the sounds - which came through very clearly from above - and soon the clatter of dishes and tinkle of glasses from the kitchen combined with the laughter of the guests and the sound of their feet tramping up and down made him very glad that that he didn't live down here permanently.  
>Maurice had put the paper on the table for him and he read some of it, peering somewhat nearsightedly at the headlines. Then he gave that up and played patience for a while, listening to the voices, trying to pick out Maurice's, sniffing the aromas from the kitchen wafting down, smelt very nice, lucky for him he'd had a decent meal or he'd be sneaking upstairs around now to try and filch something. Maurice had also given him a bottle of the table wine and he drank some of that by the fire, his mood darkening by the moment. The fancy folks'dinner seemed to go on forever. Wasn't right, having to skulk down here like some embarrassing secret. He should have gone down to the Star &amp; Garter, caught up with the lads from the market. He'd been tempted to, but something had kept him here, despite his resentment, almost as if he sought to feed it, to nurse it in some strange way. As if he wanted to keep tabs on Maurice. As if he didn't quite trust him.<br>Alec knew why he was feeling this way. It was Maurice's "society" face that'd done it. He had seen more and more of that as the months went by. Because in Alec's mind, Maurice had two faces. The society one, as he had named it to himself, was the face Maurice had been wearing when Alec first encountered him back at Penge. Very beautiful of course, but also very proper - hard, reserved, unreachable somehow. If it hadn't been for that one time when Maurice had caught him stealing the grapes - the look he'd given Alec then - he would never have so much as dreamed that he had a chance with the aloof gentleman. Maurice's real face - now that was the face he'd showed to Alec their very first morning, in the Russet Room. It had been like a gift given specially to him. A different man - gentle, very young-seeming, vulnerable and loving. The real Maurice.  
>Alec didn't like Maurice's society face, but he was surely wearing it now.<p>

At long last he heard the people leaving as their cars drew up outside, two by two they went, like Noah's bloody ark.  
>Alec heard Maurice's voice at the door - and a woman's. They came down the front steps together. Alec couldn't help it; he crept silently out his front door and stood in the area, looking boldly up at them. If they'd so much as glanced in his direction they'd have seen him, he didn't even try to hide.<br>But of course they never looked.  
>The young lady must be Mr Stanton's daughter. He heard Maurice call her "Edith."<br>_Didn't know they were on a first name basis.  
><em>Her father was nowhere to be seen, and she had managed to get arm in arm with Maurice. She leaned in close to him now and whispered something, her lips almost brushing his ear, and they laughed. Alec couldn't see Maurice's face, it was turned away from him and he couldn't see his reaction.  
>Was it his society face or his real face?<br>Alec bit his lip, hard.  
>Father dear showed up at last, he'd been lagging behind, no doubt on purpose. His tone of voice certainly sounded pleased as watched Maurice hand his daughter up into the car.<br>Alec watched Maurice wave goodbye after the departing car. He turned, his face still in shadow, lit a cigarette and wet back inside. A cough was trying to force its way up and out of Alec's lungs but he suppressed it - he found he didn't want Maurice to know that he was there.

Maurice waited impatiently for the staff to finish up. They seemed to take forever but finally they were ready to go. He tipped them and shut the back door behind them with a sigh of relief. That had gone quite well actually, not as painful as he'd thought and now he'd done his duty he shouldn't have to repeat the process again for a good few months.  
>He poured two glasses of the rather good red wine and listened out for the sound of Alec's footsteps on the stairs. It didn't come.<br>_Maybe he's fallen asleep.  
><em>Maurice went down and tried the connecting door on the backstairs landing. It was locked. Alec must have bolted it from his side. Maurice's good spirits deserted him, his heart began to thump.  
>"Alec - Alec, open the door," he called. No answer. "Alec, why is it locked? Alec, please."<br>Nothing.  
>He considered going down outside and knocking on the basement flat's windows or door but an abrupt, wine-fuelled anger bubbled up in him.<br>_If he wants to be so pigheaded about it he can stay down there. It wasn't my choice to have this party; I had to. For my job. The job I've taken on for his sake, the ungrateful beast.  
><em>Maurice went to bed alone. It was the first time they had voluntarily slept apart in the whole eight years since Boathouse, Penge.

The next day was Saturday and Maurice didn't have to work though Alec did. Maurice stood at the upstairs window, watching. He hadn't slept a wink of course, cursing his stupid pride yet unwilling to go and beg, lest he be rejected again.  
>At six o'clock sharp as per usual his beloved friend emerged, climbed the basement stairs to the gate, went through. It clanked shut behind him. Alec turned around and looked up as if he'd known Maurice would be there. His mouth was set in that sulky way he had that made him look about fifteen. The dark eyes that showed his every feeling were full of resentment, anger - and something else. With a jolt Maurice recognised the emotion, found its strong echo within himself. <em>Helplessness<em>. Yes, helplessness, as if something was happening that they couldn't control. Maurice lifted his hand in greeting. Alec looked at him a moment longer, stuck his hands in his pockets and stalked off.

Maurice felt winded, as though someone had dealt him a blow. They'd argued before of course - sometimes quite violently - but in the cottage, at such close quarters, life quickly became well nigh unbearable if animosity persisted, so there'd been no choice but to make up quite quickly and usually in the most pleasant way possible. There was only one bed after all.  
>Yet now, he felt a sickeningly familiar breach opening up between them for the first time in years. In this house they didn't need to reconcile in order to coexist, here they could quite independently carry on in their own spheres, separated by stairs and storeys. Physical, brick-and -mortar symbols of that far more invidious enemy. Class. How could it happen? Between Maurice and his Alec? In their very own home that they lived in together?<br>To be physically separated from Alec was the worst of punishments.  
>Maurice had loved Clive with his heart and his head, and at the time he had thought that was enough. Clive wouldn't allow more. But he loved Alec with his heart, his head - and his body. That physical need, that wanting, was so intimately, inextricably woven into the loving that he couldn't possibly separate the strands. Nor did he want to. It felt completely natural, completely right. Clive's kind of love was all white marble, beautiful Greek columns reaching up into a bright blue sky, unchanging, idealistic, ultimately sterile. Alec was the woods, the smell of smoke and leaf-mold, the sunlight and the shadow.<br>Alec was life.  
>If Alec had died in the war Maurice didn't know what he would have done. Actually that wasn't true. He did know. Perfectly well.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Alec came home that evening in a better temper.  
>He'd spent a miserable night in that cold, damp, un-aired bed downstairs, and then the look on Maurice's face that morning standing at the window had been awful to see. Alec couldn't help himself, looking up. He'd known Maurice would be there, as sure as the sun rose in the east. Alec knew he was being possessive and unreasonable, knew Maurice was devoted to him alone in a way that was almost frighteningly intense at times, and that he didn't care a fig for that girl and never would. It wasn't fair to treat him so badly, it was almost cruel.<br>He determined to patch things up between them. _Tonight_.

That evening he came up through the basement flat as usual and found Maurice in the kitchen making them some dinner as Mrs Moxley didn't work on weekends, thank God.  
>Maurice pointed with a wooden spoon to a bottle of red wine on the kitchen table. His eyes were uncertain but his voice sounded normal enough when he spoke. "You look beat. Have some of that, it's very good. There's also pudding left over."<br>Alec sat down and poured himself a big glass. "Cheers."  
>It appeared that they had each independently come to the same decision, had both decided to pretend that nothing untoward had happened.<br>_Least said soonest mended, as Mum always said_.  
>At first everything went very well. Alec made a big effort to act all as usual, nicer than usual, and poor Maurice managed to unwind by degrees too. By halfway through dinner he was smiling and talking quite easily again.<br>An hour and a good deal more wines later they made it up to the bedroom, together this time. Alec had removed Maurice's shirt and was busy fumbling with his belt buckle when Maurice dropped the bombshell.  
>"What'll we do tomorrow?" Alec had asked between kisses. Sunday was their one day together and it started with a long lie-in of course, but then it was nice to go out together, experience something of the place seeing as they had to live here.<br>"Alec, I'm sorry, I can't. I - I promised Miss Stanton I'd go horse-riding with her."  
>"You did <em>what<em>?" He let go of Maurice and stepped back.  
>"I didn't mean to, you see, it was at dinner last night. I happened to mention I ride and next thing I knew she and her father had practically arranged it. I couldn't think of a way to get out of it."<br>"Didn't want to, you mean."  
>"Don't be so bloody stupid. It'll only be for a few hours - I promise."<br>"And what about the Sunday after that - and the next? What'll it be then? A stroll around the zoological gardens? A nice concert? The _the-ay-tre_?" Stretching out this last word contemptuously, in the way he imagined the toffs said it. All Alec's resolve to be reasonable was gone again, flown away as if it had never existed.  
>"There won't be another. Next time I'll be forearmed. A sick aunt in the country, rediscovering my religion, I don't know. I'll make a list."<br>"Sunday's _our _day, Maurice."  
>"I said I'm sorry."<br>They didn't sleep apart that night but they might as well have.

Maurice left at ten the next morning and Alec jumped straight on the omnibus as soon as the cab had disappeared from sight. It was Milly's half-day and with any luck he'd catch her before she went out. She'd been dropping hints about going for "a stroll" somewhere nice together and all of a sudden it seemed a very good idea to take her up on it.  
><em>Two can play at this game. If he thinks I'm sitting around like some lovesick girl waiting for him to come home again he's got anther thing coming.<br>_Alec, despite his good intentions of yesterday, possessed a fiery vengeful streak a mile wide - and it had just been ignited.  
>He didn't think about Milly's feelings, he didn't think about anything really, just sat and smoked cigarette after cigarette on the bus out to old Chisholm's.<p>

"Vanilla, please."  
>The ice cream seller handed it to Milly with a smile-for-the-courting-couple while Alec paid. His mistake was natural enough. Milly certainly had a happy and expectant air about her, looked quite girlish in her white best dress with flowers on, and her hat and parasol.<br>_But she _is_ practically a girl, Alec, despite having been wed. She's what, twenty-five? And you're leading her on. Again_.  
>He scowled. Fortunately Milly wasn't looking at his face just then, but pointing up at some bright children's kites flying high overhead.<br>_You've got to stop this - now.  
><em>But how could he? They'd only just got to Shrewsbury Gardens and there was a whole catalogue of things Milly wanted to see. He hadn't realised the place was so huge. The lake. The meadows with spring flowers just starting their show. The tearooms. The open-air concert at the bandstands.  
>The best thing he could do was act as a respectable escort, nothing more, like a brother or something, and hope her expectations calmed down somewhat. It wasn't as if he'd actually promised her anything; just shown up at the door and asked her if she fancied a day at the gardens because he felt like taking some air himself. He had nothing to feel guilty about. Absolutely nothing.<p>

Alec and Milly were walking along by the water when he saw them.  
>Riding along the lakeside bridle path, on two fine-looking piebald horses, whether hired or owed by Miss Stanton's father, who knew. It hadn't occurred to Alec that it would be here that they went for their ride. Maurice was chatting away quite animatedly, but it was the look on Edith Stanton's face that sent a fresh rush of jealous rage through Alec. She was looking at Maurice in a way she had no right to, looking at him as if Maurice was free for her taking. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, her fine chestnut hair beneath a jaunty feathered cap glimmered in the sun. She wore jodhpurs, quite racy and modern for a woman, and the horses walked along so close that her knee brushed against Maurice's. Up and down, up and down, her leg against his, along with the motion of their mounts.<br>Alec stood, staring at them quite openly. Miss Stanton, face turned raptly toward Maurice's, didn't notice. Maurice, looking around, did - and his eyes widened in shock when he saw Alec and Milly there, his mouth actually dropped open. It would have been funny if Alec hadn't been so angry.  
>Milly tugged at his arm. "Alec, come on. Never seen a horse before? Let's go and get some tea and cake. I fancy -"<br>Before she could finish her sentence he'd pulled her to him and kissed her soundly on the mouth, his eyes never for a moment leaving Maurice's.

It was evening by the time he'd seen Milly back to Chisholm's and got back home again.  
>There was, unsurprisingly, no dinner made this time. The kitchen was cold, dark and quiet as he passed through it on his way up to the house. Dread filled him. He knew he'd done a great wrong. Not just to Maurice but to Milly too. After the kiss she'd linked elbows with him as they promenaded about, squeezed his arm. She didn't even notice his silence, filled the void with her own happy talk. He should have extracted his arm from hers, made some excuse for his behaviour, but he couldn't think of a thing. What he had done was serious. They weren't kids any more, larking around like down at Penge. Milly had interpreted that kiss as a promise, a statement of his intentions that he'd never quite been willing to give back then.<br>And then there was Maurice. It was one of Alec's faults, he knew it, that if ever he felt he'd been slighted his first instinct was to hit back - hard, unthinkingly. He'd done this to Maurice twice now. Once over his not coming to the Boathouse as Alec had ordered, and again today. It would be his undoing one of these days.  
>He felt sick.<br>He found Maurice in the parlour. His friend sat looking into the fire, drink in hand. Alec wondered how many he'd already had.  
>"What're you playing, at Alec?" His voice low, and frighteningly controlled.<br>Maurice had heard him, though he'd entered the room almost soundlessly, a skill upon which he usually prided himself.  
>"What am <em>I<em> playing at? That's rich coming from you," Alec shot back, instantly fired-up again, realising he'd more than half-expected Maurice's opening gambit to be conciliatory - he was ever the peacemaker. Always had been, before.  
>Maurice turned around, stood up. His eyes were as dark as Alec had ever seen them, almost the same colour as the brandy in his hand.<br>"What were you doing with that girl? It was Milly, wasn't it?"  
>"Stepping out, same as you."<br>He swore he could hear Maurice's teeth grinding together. "Miss Stanton and I are not stepping out, as you well know."  
>"Looked like it to me. I'm sure you've thought it over, Maurice, and all things considered it's probably a good step up in the world. Marry her and you'll get another promotion. Might even inherit dear papa's business once he's gone. Who wouldn't jump at the chance. Why'd you want to go on tupping a lowly gamekeeper when you've got that to look forward to. And if you're getting your bit of skirt, I don't see why I shouldn't either."<br>Alec was raving by now and if he'd but stopped a moment to take a good look at Maurice's face, maybe he would have stopped. But he didn't, and when Maurice shot forward and slammed him up against the wall he was unprepared. Alec swore at him and pushed back but Maurice had the advantage of height and weight, not to mention surprise and a moment later, when it became clear that Maurice wasn't actually about to hit him but was instead tearing at his trousers, yanking them down to his knees, a hot, intense desire flared up in Alec. Mixed in equal parts with the anger, just as it was in Maurice.  
>Then Maurice's mouth slammed so hard against his that he felt his lower lip go numb.<br>For a while there was no sound in the room but ragged breathing, hoarse moans and the slap of flesh against flesh as they reasserted their ownership of each other in the most basic way known to man. Followed shortly after by loud cries of pleasure that they could neither control nor stifle, as climax ripped through them both.

Afterward, they lay in a tangled heap on the floor, not looking at each other, while their racing hearts and panting breath slowed back to normal.  
>Maurice felt he teetered on the very edge of a precipice, could already feel the sick, dizzy sensation of tipping slowly over. He was sure he'd lost Alec forever. It was as if he'd been possessed. Like that struggle with Clive over the key in the smoking room, all those years ago. Except a thousand times worse.<br>The silence stretched out until he could bear it no longer. Steeling himself, he ventured to speak.  
>"Did I hurt you?"<br>_My God, even the same words coming from my mouth. My life, always in circles, in cycles, swinging around the sun like Grandpapa said.  
><em>"Of course not." Alec's voice was slow and heavy, as if he was drugged. A pause. "Maybe a bit."  
>"I'm sorry."<br>"Don't be. I enjoyed it, in case you didn't notice."  
>Alec turned his head and met Maurice's eyes. The bright brown eyes of the man he loved more than his own life. What he saw there - still saw there, after all that had been said and done that day, made him want to weep with blessed relief.<p>

The primitive frenzy of their coupling seemed to have performed some rite, exorcised some demon between them. Alec felt as if they had been washed clean, their union as fresh, new and innocent as it had been back in the Russet Room.  
>He stood, reached down for Maurice's hand and drew him up. Led him upstairs, laid him down upon the bed and made love to him more gently and sweetly than he ever had before.<p>

"We have to get out of here."  
>Alec nodded, then a fit of coughing took him and Maurice rubbed his back until it passed.<br>"You'll see a doctor before we leave." It wasn't a question.  
>"Yes Maurice," Alec replied meekly. He wasn't about to raise a fuss about anything right now. "Where will we go?"<br>Maurice pulled him close. "I don't know. But we'll think of something, we always do."  
>There was no choice but to go. They both knew it. Their town experiment was over. The vortex of people was pulling them apart, sucking them back into their separate spheres, into the roles society deemed proper for them, and it seemed that they were powerless to stop it. This town did the work even the Great War had failed to achieve; it had come within a hair's breadth of parting them forever. Alec shivered at the thought. He'd been faithful to Maurice all through those terrible years of fighting though the temptation had sometimes been...fierce, to take a bit of comfort where it was offered. And he was certain Maurice had stayed true to him also, though they'd never asked one another outright. And now he'd just about thrown it all away over some silly girl. It was this town. It was doing something to him, something wrong. He hated it.<br>"Let's leave straight away."  
>"Not before we both give proper notice. I'm not skipping out without a reference again. It'll only be a month, Alec. We'll be all right."<br>"Maurice. I've done a terrible thing to Milly and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it."  
>Maurice shifted uneasily at mention of her. "You'll have to make something up. What I mean is, you'll have to lie. All these lies - Alec, they're like poison. I've never had to tell so many in my life."<br>"Who've you bin lying to?"  
>"The Stantons, mainly. Trying to make out I was normal." He laughed humourlessly.<br>"You convinced them you was normal, all right."  
>"How do you mean?"<br>"Maurice. You never see things, do you. That Stanton girl's in love with you and has a mind to marry. I can see that and I've never even spoken a word to her."  
>There was a silence as Maurice's mind processed this new fact. The glow of his cigarette flared brighter as he dragged deeply on it.<br>"I really am a fool. You're right, I'm always so slow at seeing. I'm sorry I made you so unhappy."  
>Alec, all anger long gone, poked him in the ribs, tried to cheer him up. "Well, I always did have to take drastic action to get yer attention, didn't I? Climb in through your bedroom window and practically ravish you, threaten to blackmail you or move to the Argentine, and now, worst of all, kissing a girl in Shrewsbury Park."<br>"You got my attention good and proper this time, Alec dear."  
>Alec ran his fingers gently, absently, along the shrapnel scar on Maurice's shoulder.<br>"I think I did, yes."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Next day, Alec lurked about the kitchen door until at last Milly appeared, on her way down to the laundry with an armful of purple cloth.  
>"Milly. Can I talk to you a minute?"<br>She shot him a dazzling smile, then made a regretful face.  
>"I can't. I've got to get the spilt tea stain out of Miss Sharpe's lilac wool. She wants to wear it today."<br>"It's important."  
>"All right." She smiled again. "Come down to the laundry with me."<br>Milly led him down the narrow steps to the steamy basement room. Fortunately, the laundry maids were out hanging sheets to air so they were alone. Milly got a bottle of vinegar and mixed a few drops with some water. She spread out the skirt on an ironing board and began dabbing away at a brown stain down the front.  
>Alec just stood and watched her work, hypnotised by a kind of sinking dread.<br>"Well?" She shot a look over her shoulder, that bright smile still on her face.  
>"About yesterday...Milly." He found himself moving from one foot to the other in his agitation. "I shouldn't have done what I did..."<br>Her hand froze. As did her smile. She put down the cloth and turned very slowly to face him. "What do you mean?"  
>"What happened. I didn't mean it to." He steeled himself. "Milly, I never should have let things go so far but you're so nice to spend time with and all, and I'm sorry if you got the wrong idea -"<br>"Me? Got the wrong idea? You kissed me, Alec Scudder! Or don't you remember?"  
>"Well, I - got carried away. It can't go any further."<br>Milly took a step toward him, almost beseechingly, then stopped, her arms falling heavily to her sides. When she spoke again her normally pleasant, lilting voice was tight with barely-controlled anger. "Well, this is grand, isn't it? For the second time, no less! I suppose you think I should feel honoured that you bothered to actually tell me in person this time. Can you not control yourself? I mean, I've known men to get a bit ...affectionate, but you take the biscuit! You conniving...oh, I've nothing to do today so I think I'll just kiss Milly to pass the time. What do you think I am?"  
>"I think you're a very nice girl."<br>"No you don't."  
>"Yes I do. But - you see - I'm already promised to another."<br>She gave an inarticulate shriek, and the vinegar bottle shot across the room straight at his head. He ducked, and it smashed into pieces against the wall, vinegar and chips of glass spraying all over his hair and jacket.  
>Milly was crying now, great heaving sobs, her tears falling unheeded onto the purple dress. Alec watched her for a few moments, unsure what to do. He heard feminine footsteps rushing down the stairs.<p>

"Milly - what is the matter? Dear girl..." Cook and the upstairs housemaid converged on her, the housemaid casting a poisonous look in Alec's direction as she passed. Milly started crying harder.  
>Alec made his escape.<br>That afternoon he handed in his notice.

Milly sat on the narrow bed in her attic room, staring sightlessly at the wall opposite, her foot tap-tapping on the floor, a well-used handkerchief twisting constantly between her hands. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her nose red, sore and chapped-looking.  
><em>I'd have done anything for him. I wanted him more than anything...even my dear Edward, I know it, may God forgive me. With Alec it felt different. And then when he came back...a second chance for me, it felt like.<br>It ain't right. Leading a girl on, then casting her aside like an old boot. Not once but twice. Does he think I've got no self- respect? I'm not talking to him ever again that's for sure_...  
>Yet only a few minutes later her thoughts veered away onto an entirely different and somewhat unwelcome track. Milly knew she shouldn't torment herself, but she couldn't help it.<br>_That kiss can't have been for nothing.._.  
>On Sunday she determined to go to his house, see this fancy woman, or whoever she was, that he had clearly kept stowed away in town. No wonder he didn't want to live-in. Milly wanted to see this girl. See if she could compete.<p>

Sunday. Milly stood in the shadow of a large tree. Alec's lodgings, his address supplied for her by a quick bit of research in Mr Chisholm's study by the sympathetic upstairs housemaid, had turned out to be an awful lot nicer than the boarding-house she had expected. It was in a square lined with solid, respectable houses with a leafy garden occupying the centre. A garden where she now lurked, listening to the crunch of perambulator wheels on gravel paths behind her, the lazy Sunday voices of people passing by. She tried to look as inconspicuous as possible but was starting to feel rather uncomfortable and was thinking of leaving when Alec suddenly appeared, up the stairs from the basement flat.  
><em>How on earth does he pay for that?<br>_He stood on the pavement, leaning against the iron railings, hands in pockets and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.  
><em>Is he waiting for her?<em> She scanned the footpaths, seeking a likely young female. Not as respectable as the young matrons passing by of course - someone who looked more like a town servant - a bit flashy no doubt, with a dress a few seasons old passed on by her mistress and an over-decorated hat. There was no-one in sight yet, who even remotely fitted the bill.  
>The door to the main house opened and a man emerged. It was lucky Milly had a tree trunk to lean back against or her knees would have given out and she'd have dropped to the ground.<br>Mr Hall. She'd recognise him anywhere. The thick dark hair, handsome features, tall frame. How could she forget him - it was disgusting the way he and Mr Durham had carried on, right in front of her as if she didn't even exist - and in the Blue Room no less! Simcox had seen them at it too. But what on earth was he doing here?  
>He bounded down the stairs and went right up to Alec. Alec's slightly sullen air transformed into a smile and they walked off down the street together.<br>Milly groped for a park bench like a blind woman, collapsed onto it. Pieces of the puzzle were coming together in her mind, swiftly now, and she was amazed she hadn't seen the connections before. Of course the staff all knew that some disgrace had befallen Mr Hall - the Durhams just couldn't help but talk in front of them, invisible as servants were to the gentry. _It's as if they think we were born without ears to hear or eyes to see._ Mr Hall had all but disappeared it seemed...at exactly the same time as Alec. She couldn't believe it. Alec Scudder - and Mr Hall. Together. Simcox must have guessed - he always knew everything. Damn him for not telling her.  
>Whatever Alec was up to with that Mr Hall, it wasn't right. Unnatural. And to think she'd actually considered marrying him! Milly shuddered, felt herself growing cold. She didn't know whether she felt better or worse about it; that she'd been thrown over not once but twice for a man, rather than another woman.<p>

Riding the omnibus back, Milly surprised even herself when a feeling of compassion began to gain the upper hand in her turbulent thoughts. This unexpected magnanimous mood was helped along more than a little by the sudden recollection that Mum and Dad's neighbour's son Tom had for a while been taking more than a passing interest in her whenever she went home to visit. Unfortunately, in the last few months she'd somewhat given him the cold shoulder, since Alec had reappeared in her life. Respectable small business man, Tom was. In fact, she was going to her parents' for dinner that very night. Maybe she'd see him...  
>Anyway, she ought to let bygones be bygones. It was the Christian thing to do. In the spirit of the past she really ought to try and help save Alec from himself. Mum might still have Hannah Scudder's address from when the two families got to know each other a little while the Scudders were up at the village looking for any trace of their son. She'd write to them, tell them the situation and the circumstances. They had a right to know.<br>And tonight, if she saw him, she'd be much nicer to Tom. It might not be too late.

Edith held out her hand. It was shaking slightly, she wondered if he noticed.  
>"Well, I'm very sorry to see you go, Mr Hall."<br>_Well, that's the understatement of the year, isn't it, Edith you ridiculous girl?  
><em>"I'm sorry too Ed - Miss Stanton. I'd much rather stay here but circumstances just don't allow..." Maurice had concocted a story about a family crisis down in London, an ailing mother, a widowed sister who needed him nearby, etcetera.  
><em>Poor Chapman...to add insult to injury I've killed him off now, too.<br>_She'd changed her hair since he'd last seen her - it was in a modern style now, a bob he believed it was called - very short. Her style of dress seemed to have altered too, though he couldn't say how. He hoped Alec wasn't right, about her being sweet on him. Because he did like her, though not in that way, and didn't like to think he'd made her unhappy.  
><em>Alec and I seem to be making a habit of that these days. Making other people unhappy. <em>He was glad the month was early up and they could go. Alec was having a rotten time at his work, with most of the female staff not speaking to him in solidarity with their fellow wronged maid. At least he was an outdoor servant so didn't have to mix with them so much in any case.  
>Miss Stanton was leaving the office now, in rather a hurry it seemed, the sound of her last farewell lingering longer than she did as the glass-panelled doors swung closed behind her. He glanced out the window and watched her walk past. She was moving fast, head down. He couldn't see her face.<br>Maurice sighed, sat down at his desk and picked up his pen.  
>So that was that.<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

They were throwing the last of the dust covers over the furniture in the drawing room when the knock came at the door. It was their last day in the house: everything was cleaned, most of their accumulated belongings sold or given away, and Mrs Moxley had been let go, with a generous bonus in hand. She'd said a curious thing as Maurice shook her hand farewell. "Look after him," she said, meaning Alec. "You're everything to him, you know." And with a smile and a squeeze of his hand she was gone.  
><em>She's known all along<em>, he thought with some wonder. _We were nowhere near as clever as we thought we were._Thank God their housekeeper had been the sympathetic type. He'd watched her retreating back - clad in a sensible, drab, slightly down-at-heel looking brown coat - with different eyes. When would he learn, once and for all, that servants were real people with thinking brains just as much as anyone else? Even after Alec, he sometimes forgot.

"Who is it?" Alec called from the landing, where he was bringing down the rucksacks. He sounded slightly annoyed that anyone should be bothering them this close to escape - as was Maurice.  
>Maurice glanced out the drawing room window.<br>"It's a man...don't know him. There are two old people with him...Oh."  
>The older man's hair had been salt-and-pepper grey the last time they'd met. Now it was all but white, and he leaned on a cane for support. The frowzy-looking woman with red hair dyed several shades too bright for her age likewise appeared somewhat more bowed down by age or care than he remembered her. But they were unmistakable all the same.<br>"Oh, God."  
>"What is it?"<br>"Alec...it's your parents."  
>Silence from the passage. The knock sounded again.<br>Another pause. Alec descended the stairs, opened the door.

"Alec!" Maurice heard the lady shriek.  
>"Mum..."<br>Maurice moved to the drawing room door like a man in a dream, and saw his friend wrapped in the embrace of the stout little woman, holding her tight.  
>"My baby..." She was sobbing now.<br>"That's enough, Hannah," said Alec's father in a tight voice. He would look neither at Alec nor Maurice but instead kept his eyes fixed on some point on the far wall. "Let's not have a scene in the doorway, make a spectacle of ourselves."  
>"Well? Are you just going to leave us standing here?" The younger man spoke up in a tone of annoyed impatience. Alec's brother Robert, it surely must be. The family resemblance was strong between the two brothers. Though he was twenty or so years older, Robert shared something of Alec's pleasing aspect - unlike poor old Fred, who seemed to have missed out entirely on both looks and charm. No wonder he had found it so necessary to torment and dominate his younger brother as an outlet for his frustration at being the overlooked middle son.<br>Robert's eyes were dark with anger, though. And worse. Shame.  
>"Come into the parlour," said Maurice and they all did, though not one of the visiting Scudders acknowledged him or that it was he who had spoken. Alec extracted himself from his mother's arms and led her through, casting a helpless look at Maurice as he passed him in the doorway.<br>"Sit down, please," said Maurice.  
>Mrs Scudder, after a momentary hesitation, sank gratefully down onto a cloth-covered chair but the men remained standing.<br>The silence stretched out uncomfortably until at last Alec broke the spell. "How're Nance and Alice?" he asked of his mother in a small voice. He spoke of his sisters.  
>"Very well. Nancy sends her best, she has another little one on the way or she swears she would have come -"<br>"That's enough, Hannah," repeated Mr Scudder.  
>"This isn't a social call as you must have realised," added Robert, his eyes drilling into Alec's. "So. I'm fascinated to know how you're going to try and explain yourself."<br>"I took a job with Mr Hall instead - instead of the Argentine," said Alec. Maurice could hardly believe his ears. It was as if Alec had absorbed into his subconscious Maurice's own words at the hotel all those years ago, and now they emerged verbatim. Even Alec looked somewhat surprised at what he'd just said.  
><em>And what did I say next? "Let them guess, I don't care." Do I?<br>_Robert laughed disbelievingly. "Is that the best you can come up with?"  
>Whatever else Robert had been about to say was forestalled by Mr Scudder senior, who was looking properly at Maurice at last - though reluctantly, as if could hardly bear to lay eyes on him.<br>"It _is_ you." He seemed to be forcing the words out. "From the boat. The gentleman. We couldn't work out why the hell you were there. You had a damn cheek showing up the way you did. Trying to spoil Alec's farewell."  
>"It's just as well Alec didn't show up then, isn't it."<br>Maurice's voice was as cold as he could make it - and that was very. Alec shot him an unreadable look.  
>Robert took a step toward Maurice.<br>"Bob," said their father quietly, and that one word was enough to stop him in his tracks.

"Who told you where I was?"  
>"That doesn't matter," said Robert shortly. "What matters is what we're going to do now."<br>"It were Milly. Wasn't it?"  
>No one answered.<br>"I know it. It was her. The spiteful - never mind. You're right, it don't matter. So. Why're you here, Bob? You've never given a damn what I do."  
>"I'm not here for you. I'm here for Mum and Dad. For some reason they still feel some responsibility toward you. Dad's not well as you can probably see. I didn't want Mum to come at all but she insisted. We weren't to know what sort of sordid set-up we'd find you in when we got here, were we."<br>"Robert!" Hannah Scudder blanched.  
>"Sorry Mum. Anyway, Alec. We've come to take you home."<br>"You're not taking him anywhere." They all jumped at the sound of Maurice's voice. It was almost as if they'd forgotten entirely that he was there, once they'd all got properly settled into their little family confab.  
>"You'll keep quiet, sir, if you know what's good for you. We've already made a note of the location of the closest Police Station."<br>"You'll not go to the police," said Maurice. It was a statement of fact. Robert's eyes dropped. They all knew it would go worse for Alec if he did. Some things never changed.  
>"I won't leave Maurice," said Alec.<br>_"You will."_

Alec shook his head. Robert took a deep breath and deployed his big guns. "If you don't come quietly home with us there's only one other alternative...we've already been in correspondence with a sanatorium near our house. They'll take you for treatment. It would only take the word of two doctors and you'll be sent there for your own good. And we already know they'll co-operate."  
>Alec went white.<br>Maurice leaned his head back against the wall. Sanatorium? Asylum, more like. He'd heard rumours about the kind of treatments their sort got subjected to in places like that. The aversion therapy...he closed his eyes.  
>Alec started coughing, his terror of the cures that would be visited upon him stark on his face.<br>"You're sick, lad. You need help," added his father quietly.  
>"I've heard enough of this. Let's just go, Alec." Maurice stepped forward. "If we leave now we'll be long gone before any doctors can find you."<br>"If you're wise you'll back off, sir." Robert looked straight at Maurice for the first time. "Should be ashamed of yourself, leading a simple lad astray like you did."  
>"It was <em>me<em> led _him_ astray, if you must know - _Bob_," Alec shot back.  
>At those insolent words, Robert snapped. His until now barely contained rage burst out of him and he struck Alec full across the face, sending him reeling. That was enough for Maurice. In two long strides he was on Robert and with a hard shove sent him stumbling backwards. He collided heavily with the corner of a table and Maurice was on him in a moment.<br>Mrs Scudder shrieked.  
>Rage such as Maurice had never felt before in his life was on him.<br>"You'll - never - touch - him - " he thought he could hear himself saying, and then he felt Alec's arms wrap around him from behind, pulling him away.  
>Mr Scudder was tugging on Robert's arm, too, hauling at him, as the man, red-faced and panting, looked very like he was going to go at Maurice again.<br>"Don't!" said Alec in Maurice's ear. "It's not helping - "  
>Mrs Scudder cried out again."John!"<br>Scudder senior had dropped his son's arm and was clutching at his chest, breathing heavily.  
>Alec let Maurice go and threw his arm around his father, holding him up. He sagged heavily against his son's side.<br>"We've got to sit him down," he said. Maurice pulled the cover off a settee and they managed to manhandle him down onto it, semi-prone and with his legs up.  
>Hannah Scudder knelt at her husband's side, her hand on his sweat-beaded forehead. "It's his heart," she said. "His heart."<br>"I'll go for a doctor," said Maurice and went at once. Luckily there was a good doctor not too far distant - in fact, the same one Maurice had been hoping he could persuade Alec to see.  
>Fortunately the man was at home. He came straight away. By the time he and Maurice returned Mr Scudder was looking somewhat better, he was sitting up and he and Mrs Scudder were sipping at cups of hot tea. Even Robert had sat down.<br>Alec went to Maurice's side and watched as the doctor examined his father. "It's all my fault," he muttered.  
>"Don't." Maurice squeezed his arm.<br>The doctor finished examining Mr Scudder. He pronounced the incident as, fortunately, nothing more serious than "a turn", and prescribed some pills, along with bed rest.  
>"See your own doctor when you get home," he said, before adding sternly, "and no more excitement or travelling. Also no more undue stress." He looked around meaningfully at everyone in the room. You could no doubt have cut the atmosphere with a knife.<br>Maurice saw him to the door, and paid him out of sight of the Scudders.

When he came back Robert had started up again.  
>"Now, Alec," he said, his voice somewhat more measured this time. "See the aggravation you're causing? Come home with us now and there'll be no more trouble."<br>"No."  
>"You selfish little bastard. Look at the state of our father. Now you listen to me - " He actually made to rise again. Maurice tensed, watching for any sign of Robert making a move towards Alec. Ready to stop him again - as many times as need be. <em>Aggravation<em> be damned.  
>"That's <em>enough<em>!"  
>As one, the men turned shocked eyes towards Hannah Scudder. She had risen to her feet and stood now, fearless, facing down all the men. She seemed to have gained in both height and stature.<br>"That is enough, all of you." For the first time Maurice caught a glimpse of the strength of the woman. The kind of strength his own mother never had. She would sit back in womanly meekness for only so long, but when she finally chose to make her stand every man in the family would shut up and take notice.  
>"There'll be no more of this. Don't you see we're doing more harm than good? I won't have it."<br>"Sit down, Mum." Alec pushed her gently back down into her chair and passed her her cup of tea, which she accepted with shaking hands. She looked up at her youngest son with tears starting in her eyes "It seemed like such a good idea, love. We only wanted to help you because we - we love you, Alec. But now I've seen you here with...him..." She still couldn't bring herself to say Maurice's name or look at him properly, "I understand that you're here of your own free will."  
>"Mum -" Robert made a last-ditch attempt to regain the initiative.<br>"No, Robert. I thought we could persuade him but Alec's decided. We can't move him. The only way would be by force - real force, with doctors. And I'm not putting my son in no hospital. That's final."

They left soon after, with little fuss. All the fight seemed to have gone out of them - Alec's parents literally sagged with exhaustion, his father pale and dazed-looking. Maurice stood in the drawing room doorway and watched them leave, still unacknowledged but at least no longer threatened.  
>Alec hailed a cab to take them back to the station. In the doorway his mother held back, let the menfolk get a few steps ahead, Robert supporting their father on one side while he leaned heavily on his cane on the other.<br>"Can I write to you, son?" Maurice heard Mrs Scudder say in a low voice. "I'm sorry I didn't reply to your letter before."  
>"We're moving away, Mum. Today. But I'll write to you."<br>"All right." She patted his cheek fondly and sadly as if she wasn't sure if she would ever see, or indeed hear, from him again. Maurice made a pledge there and then to make sure Alec wrote - and soon.  
>Alec stood on the top step and watched the cab drive away. No-one waved.<br>Then he closed the door and leaned back against it, face stricken.  
>Maurice went to him.<p>

"All compromise was perilous, because furtive."  
>Maurice recalled them again, his very own words to himself, during that last conversation with Clive. He had seen everything with such crystal clarity then - when had it all become clouded again? Because he had been right. Living in the town <em>was<em> perilous, maybe not physically like out in the woods, but in a worse way - perilous to the spirit, and it was the compromise, the constant deceit and obfuscation, that did it. It all seemed so obvious again, now.  
>They sat together in a train carriage, leaving again for who-knows-where. But Alec had done one last thing before they left. He had seen the doctor, at last. He'd examined Alec thoroughly and found that his lungs were indeed damaged from the Spanish Flu - but that it wasn't tuberculosis.<br>Maurice had almost fainted from relief when Alec told him. It had been his unspoken fear all along.  
>"So, what <em>are<em> we going to do now?" Alec looked at Maurice and raised an eyebrow.  
>Maurice shrugged. "I don't know." The sheer relief of getting away was enough for him just now.<br>"That's good. 'Cos it's my turn to choose this time. And I've got a plan."

THE END


End file.
